Batik Painting Museum Penang

This guide to the Batik Painting Museum in Penang Island follows Tan Chong Guan, an obstetrician who spent his weekends collecting a technique nobody else wanted, and traces the technique itself back to a shopkeeper's son named Chuah Thean Teng, who in the 1950s broke with tradition by treating batik as fine art rather than fabric. You'll hear how Teng's wax-and-dye scenes of trishaw drivers and kampung houses reshaped what batik could be, and how Doctor Tan spent years gathering the work of the artists who followed him. Look for Teng's own self portrait among the paintings on the walls.